


A Scrap of the Past

by eldee



Category: X-Men (Movieverse)
Genre: F/M, community: xmmficathon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-09-23
Updated: 2007-09-23
Packaged: 2017-10-12 08:18:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/122830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eldee/pseuds/eldee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Logan runs into someone from his past – and from his past before his past.  Raven intrigues him enough that he wants to find out more.  (Post-X3)</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Scrap of the Past

**Author's Note:**

  * For [resolute](https://archiveofourown.org/users/resolute/gifts).



> Written for the xmmficathon 2007 for resolute. Thanks to lonelywalker for the beta!

It wasn't much of a bar - just a hole in the ground. It was dirty and scummy, filled with criminals and lowlifes and the dregs of society. There were dangerous men, and women, with enough dark charm to weasel a drink out of you, but not afraid to pick the wallet right out of your pocket when you weren't looking - or pull out a knife out of their own if threatened in the very least. Hell, maybe not even just for being threatened, maybe just for a bit of fun, too. The place smelled of stale piss and booze, and a thin, hazy cloud of cigarette smoke hung in the air.

Logan sipped on his beer and felt right at home.

But this type of place wasn't truly home for him anymore. The Institute was - looking after little rugrats that ran around his feet, yelling and screaming and practicing their powers in the halls when they shouldn't and making stupid jokes about why his hair pointed up into tips the way it did.

Sometimes he couldn't believe that Wolverine had been tamed to this.

Storm must have sensed that he was getting anxious, that he needed to get out of the school, if only for a little while. Probably thought that sending him into the city on errands and giving him some space and the opportunity to get a beer would prevent him from taking off all together, vanishing into the night without a word or a trace.

Storm obviously knew what she was doing.

It wasn't that he minded working at the school - not that he particularly wanted to say that out loud to anyone. But he'd be lying to himself if he didn't admit that he was getting a little restless. The need for a fight was growing in the pit of his stomach and taking it out in the Danger Room just didn't feel like enough. Maybe if he was lucky one of these idiots in the bar would try to pick a fight with him – throwing them around a bit wouldn't be a bad thing, not exactly.

He took a chug of beer, draining it back and clunking the glass down on the wooden table top. He was just considered getting up and walking over to the bar to get another when he heard a slick and seductive female voice from behind him. "Fancy meeting you here," she said.

Well. That wouldn't exactly be the worst way to get release right now either.

But when he turned around in his chair, he saw a woman he recognized. He'd never seen her in this form before, the limp dark hair framing a porcelain white face with large eyes. He'd seen pictures, though - they'd been told about her, and what had happened. How she had sold out, only no one knew if that was her actual intent, since the plan had been foiled. Much too late anyway, with the exchange of a pardon for information already completed.

"Mystique," Logan growled, his body suddenly becoming tense and ridged, on guard against his former enemy. He silently cursed at himself, mad for not picking up on her scent earlier. But as he took in a deep sniff of air, he realized that it wasn't there - at least, not the way that it had been before. It was different now - but then again, so was she.

"It's Raven now," she said from where she sat on her barstool, looking unperturbed by his reaction. "Surely you know that."

She uncrossed her legs, and her boots made a light click as the soles hit the dull, stained linoleum floor. Although she didn't look unfeminine, Logan noted she missed that certain preternatural grace to her long limbs that she had had on their previous encounters. She smoothed her skirt and grabbed her glass of wine (they had wine in places like this? _It was probably from a box_ , Logan snorted to himself) and she came over to his table, slipping into the chair across from him. He just watched her, guardedly, but didn't make a move or tell her to get lost.

"You aren't going to go and make a fuss, now are you?" she asked, her voice full, with a slight southern twang to it; much different from that strange, flat, monotone she used to have with her mutation. However, she still carried that confidence set in her shoulders, and that slight smirk to her mouth that seemed as if she knew a lot more than she was willing to let on. "I highly doubt it'd make for very good PR for the X-Men, trying to fight a helpless woman. I'm sure that big, furry, blue-" it was only then her voice dropped in a bit of scorn, or perhaps wistfulness," -lug of a politician would have his work cut out for him then."

She sat back, seemingly comfortable with sitting opposite the mutant who had once driven his claws into her stomach, and sipped on her wine.

"What do you want, Raven?" Logan asked, voice gruff. He was trying not to give her the satisfaction of appearing concerned, or bothered, by her appearance.

She shook her head and gave a nonchalant shrug of her shoulders. "Just catching up with an old friend," she said.

"We were never friends," Logan retorted instantly.

She smiled slyly. "That you can remember, anyway."

"Don't play games," Logan snapped at her. An indescribable anger flooded over him. He stood up, pushing back on his chair so hard it knocked over. He pointed a finger at her. "I don't need this, not from you."

He didn't wait for her to answer, just turned and stalked away from her, grabbing a bill out of his pocket and slamming it hard on the bar as he passed by.

The moment he went outside and the fresh air - well, as fresh as city air could be - hit him, his head cleared and he swore under his breath. He really should have paid her more attention, enough to get some information from her, decide if she was really telling the truth or not. With the Professor dead, and Jean... there wasn't anyone able to help him open up the blocks in his memory, figure out who he was. Or, at least, who he had been.

He waited outside the bar, stealthy and unseen. He thought at first that Raven had possibly exited a different way, he waited so long. But she finally left the bar and walked down the street instead of getting into a car or cab. She was alone, and he followed her, remaining unobserved. A couple of blocks from the bar, she stopped outside a small apartment building. She pulled keys from inside her purse, but then paused and looked around. She didn't look directly at where he was standing, hidden in the shadows of an alley entrance, but there was a knowing smile on her face. She brought her fingertips to her lips and blew a kiss out into the randomness of a New York street, but Logan knew it was for him. Mocking him. Or maybe inviting him.

He watched long enough to see her go into the building, the lights of a third floor apartment go on, and her lanky figure walk across the room and pull down the blinds. Then he turned and left.

This wasn't something he should be getting caught up in. It wasn't. Really.

 

 **  
2.**

"I wondered how long it would be before I saw you again," Raven said, smiling from the crack between the door and door frame, having opened the door only slightly, protectively. The chain linking the two hung in front of her face like a big toothy smile, and Logan idly thought it made her look like the Cheshire cat.

"Just let me in, Raven," Logan replied gruffly. The door closed and he could hear her sliding the chain out of its lock.

 

It was exactly a week to the day since he had seen her last. He'd done the duties he'd committed to during the week, though he had been more distant and, as one of the students had so eloquently put on Friday, 'more of an asshat ' than usual. Storm had come to him Friday evening and asked if anything was wrong. He had thought about telling her about Raven but decided against it - no need to put any more pressure on Ororo's already-stressed shoulders. And so he made some grumbling complaint about how having one beer opened the floodgates of need and if he couldn't bring some into the Institute could he at least go out and have some?

Ororo looked at him as if he was a bit off his rocker, and then laughed. "Logan. You're an adult. If you want to take off for the weekend, do it. Just let me so I know you'll be returning. Speaking of which, you coming back for the Danger Room session you promised the older boys Sunday evening?"

"Ororo," Logan replied, taking a cigar from his inner jacket pocket. He grinned as he popped it into his mouth and said around it, "I'm no slacker."

Ororo just rolled her eyes, plucked the cigar from his mouth, and threw it into the trashcan on her way out of the office.

And now here he was, Saturday night, and Raven Darkholme had just opened her apartment door to him. "Nice place," he said as he brushed past her, not even looking around. Without pausing for even a second, he continued, "What the hell did you mean last week?"

"About what, precisely?" she asked. She strolled past him, fingers trailing lightly over the shoulder of his jacket. "Make yourself at home, James. Would you care for a beer?" she asked as she walked toward her kitchen. "I recall you are quite fond of them."

"That's nothing new, everyone knows that," Logan said dryly. Then something in his mind twittered a bit, a small flash, but when he reached out for it again, it was gone. He frowned. "James," he said slowly. He looked at her hard. "Why'd you call me that?"

"Because, other than Wolverine, _that_ is how I knew you," Raven replied as she came back into the living room, a can of beer in her hand. She had that knowing smirk on her face and Logan felt like smacking it right off.

She held the beer out to him but he completely ignored it - he just focused on her instead. She shrugged and put it down on the coffee table.

"When did you know me?" Logan asked insistently. "How did you know me? Are you playing with me? If you are, I swear to god... Why are you doing this?"

"One question at a time," she said calmly, walking over to him. "I will admit, in some ways, I did not know you well. But in others," she added with a seductive smile, looking him up and down slowly, "I knew you _very_ well."

Logan didn't back away from her as she advanced closer. He stood his ground and stared her down. "Just what do you mean by tha-"

He never got to finish his question. She grabbed the front of his coat and pulled him into a crushing kiss, and there was something in him that remembered those lips, something that hadn't bothered to notice that time in the tent, he was so focused on thinking it was Jean. This time, he was ready to explore it, though he couldn't remember why he should want to.

The beer was left forgotten. Well, until the next morning, anyway.

 

 **3.**

Logan still couldn't believe he had bedded with Raven Darkholme. That night in her apartment she had known exactly what to do to please him and make him forget everything else and, he suspected, what would tire him out and make him just want to sleep till morning. Then, in the morning, she had already been showered and dressed by the time he'd woken up - or, rather, when she had woken him up by purposely setting off the alarm beside his head and making him leave when she did.

On the way back to the Institute, he realized that he still didn't know anything more about his past life, other than his name had possibly been James. And that he had slept with Mystique at one point or another. Or maybe several times. That part Raven had made very clear.

The rest of the week had been a bit of a mess. He realized that maybe Raven had duped him, used the sex to distract him from the truly important matters, or maybe just used him for sex in general. It bothered him so much that he kept screwing up all week at the Institute. He wasn't paying enough attention during defense class and Jones' glasses ended up being broken. During a Danger Room session, Colossus had gotten one up on him, but then apologized profusely afterwards. And he snapped at Bobby one day when the younger man asked if he was going up to the city for the weekend.

"What's it to _you_ , kid."

Bobby had looked affronted, and replied, "Geez, just wanted to know if I could get a ride to the city on the weekend so I could visit Marie. Forget I asked."

And then even Ororo had asked if he was bringing beer into the school when he knew he shouldn't be – which he hadn't, but it had crossed his mind a time or two. Daily. Maybe hourly. She hadn't look overly reassured when he had denied stashing some in his room.

Obviously, Logan needed to fix this. He was dealing with guilt on all sorts of levels, and he was not cool with that. At all. The only way to deal with it would be go and confront Raven.

The second weekend went much like the first.

He was determined the third weekend would go much better... which meant, on this fine Sunday morning, he had about twenty minutes before Raven kicked him out of bed and took off.

If she was at all startled he was awake when she came out of the bathroom after her shower, she didn't show it. "Oh, you're awake," she said blandly, the heavy moist air and smell of her strawberry bath stuff wafted out of the bathroom after her. "At least I won't have to fiddle with that alarm clock this weekend."

She dropped her towel to the ground, completely unabashed with being naked. _Then again, she used to be quite used to it_ , Logan thought with a little too much amusement. He tried to shake those thoughts off – he had serious questions to ask her.

She took the bottle of perfume off her dresser, the one Logan had made a comment about the night before, about it being too strong and sickly sweet and pungent at the same time. Raven said she rather liked it and if Logan really didn't want to put up with it he could just leave. He hadn't. After putting some on, and getting dressed in at least her undergarments, she went to her closet to assess the rest of her clothing.

Logan watched, and asked, "When did we know each other, then?"

She looked at him, face blank. "Excuse me?"

"Enough of this, Raven," Logan replied gruffly. He flipped the sheet off him and swung his legs out of bed, groping at the floor for his boxers. "You know why I'm really here, and it's to get information." He wasn't bothered by the fact that that probably wasn't the most flattering thing to say. He waved his hand in her general direction, "Stop trying to distract me."

Raven paid no mind to his outburst. "It was a time before I knew Erik, and before you knew Stryker," she answered simply. "A long time ago."

"How can that be? You don't look _that_ old."

"Why, thank you," Raven replied, with a mock appreciation. "But Mystique had regenerative healing ability. Not the same as yours, but she didn't age the same way this meat sack I'm in will. I am not looking forward to dealing with wrinkles," she added dryly.

He really wasn't concerned with her attitude to her new human state, nor was he going to let himself be further distracted. "Why did we, you know. Hook up?"

"Our animistic physical attraction to each other, of course."

Logan rolled his eyes as he pulled on his jeans. "I mean, why did we know each other? _How_ did we know each other?"

Raven, now clothed in crisp black pants and a pale green sweater, turned to him. "I had a companion. She had precognitive abilities. She told me I needed to find you. That you'd be important to saving the world someday."

" _What_?"

"She wasn't wrong, wasn't she? Didn't you recently do that by stabbing the love of your life in the stomach – you're very good at that, by the way."

Logan's heart ached with a dull pain that never quite went away but he decided not to address it. Raven was the last person on the planet he wanted to speak with about Jean. "What did you have to do with it?"

"Something about self discovery."

"What does that mean?"

"No idea. She was often cryptic," Raven said offhandedly, leaving the bedroom. Logan grabbed his shirt off the floor and followed her, pulling it over his head. "It could have very well meant nothing. She was angry with me at the time and maybe used it to get me out of her way. I don't know."

"Who is she, anyway?"

"Doesn't matter, she's dead," Raven said flatly. She turned to Logan. "That's all the time I have for today's history lesson." She turned to walk away from him but he grabbed her hand and spun her around. Her wrist struggled in his hand, and once upon a different time, she would have been able to get away. And, even now, she nearly did, but then suddenly stopped and instead looked coolly at him.

"Were we..." he started, then paused over the words he just couldn't make himself say.

"It was just sex. Sex, and occasional pillow talk," she answered, picking up on what he meant.

He nodded, and his grip on her loosened. He gave a crooked grin of disbelief. "What could Wolverine and Mystique talk about?"

"Plenty. A lot more than Logan and Raven." She pulled her hand away from his, and opened the door to leave. "I have to go."

"Some other time, then?"

She didn't look back at him. "Perhaps."

He didn't expect anything different from her.

 

 **4.**

The news had come to him through Marie. One evening during the week, there had been a knock on his bedroom door, and when he opened it, he saw her standing there; the young woman with white streaks in her hair and tears streaming down her cheeks.

"What's wrong?" he asked, pulling her into his room when she asked for a bit of privacy.

She reached out with her bare hand and put it on his forearm, and that put a small smile on his lips because he knew how much she liked being able to do that. She just kept it there, the tears still coming. "Marie, what?" But after about twenty seconds – longer than it used to be - he could feel it. The pull of Rogue's power.

It was coming back.

He snatched his arm back, just an involuntary reflex, but it made her burst into sobs. "Oh, Marie," he said, pulling her into a hug, being careful not to touch her bare skin. "I'm sorry."

The following week was crazy around the Institute. Reports started to leak of the failing cure. Calls flooded into the school. People, scared and lonely and with nowhere else to turn, showed up at the front door. Hank blustered around, spouting speeches about diplomacy and how the government will help and support mutants in this stressful time. Ororo looked tired and worn but held it together, trying to comfort everyone she could. Peter started taking care of the younger students, the gentle giant that he was, with help from Kitty. Bobby put on a strong face. Rogue blinked back tears at regular intervals. The mutant community was being blindsided by something it just hadn't expected, and wasn't prepared for.

And, despite the face he put on, all Logan could think about was Raven.

He had stayed at the Institute, helped out where he was needed, and he didn't expect Raven - Mystique - to be at her apartment when he finally was able to sneak away. And he hadn't been wrong. By the time he took the chance to leave the school for a while, it had been over a week after the news had hit publicly that the "cure" no longer worked. When he got to her place, it was completely empty. He didn't know if she had done it, or maybe the government had moved in and cleaned it out, taking her possessions to get find clues on to her whereabouts.

He honestly believed that they didn't have her in custody, and that she had gotten away. Because, despite the otherwise empty apartment, there was a message left in it for him - something from her.

Sitting on the hardwood floor in the middle of the otherwise empty living room was the perfume bottle - the perfume that could very well cover up a remerging natural scent. Underneath the bottle sat a scrap piece of paper with cursive writing he knew he should recognize, with only two words:

 _James Howlett._

As he clung to the paper, a feeling of disappointment and loss flooding through him. It was familiar in a sense that he knew he must have felt it before. Something like this had already happened once in the past.

He just couldn't remember what.

~end


End file.
